The first comment following a positive review of a play called "The Last Supper," on stage here in Madison, Wisconsin. First line of the review: "It's almost eerie that a play about extreme political rhetoric and vitriol would open just two weeks after the terrible shootings in Tucson."

The challenging "thought-experiments" proffered by one Larry Kaufman in the comments section were on-target instructive. The oh-so-polite smarmy replies even more so. Even worse were the comments of the reviewers who concentrated only on the actors techniques--sort of like commenting approvingly on the technique of the operators of the ovens and gas-chambers at Bergen-Belsen without bothering to note--even in passing--the moral depravity of it all..

Isn't a play like this an indictment of the smugness of the leftists portrayed in it? The idea that a certain group is so sure of itself and blind to reality that it views murder of strangers with different views as a good deed is a condemnation of that group, is it not?

That's what made the green ad with the exploding skeptics so weird -- it was a critique of itself, but so tone-deaf that it dd not realize the fact.

Imagine my surprise...I check into the Althouse blog before beginning my work day, and the first thing I see is a comment I left a few days earlier at The Daily Page. BTW, as you can tell from the other comments there, I've agreed to see this play courtesy of the Mercury Players Theater. I fully expect to hate it, but I'm going to do my best to keep an open mind.

And thanks, Tosa, for your concern, but I think I can handle myself - and TWM, for spoiling the ending.

Which was better than it sounded, mostly because in the end the conservative radio personality (a Rush Limbaugh wannabe) they set up to kill, in fact, kills them.

It's worth sitting through it just to see the ending.

Well, as long as we're giving away the ending ...

The talk show host was played by Ron Perlman. He came across as very reasonable, very intelligent, someone you could "agree to disagree with," which splits the group that's been executing right-wingers one after another; some want to kill Perlman, others don't. As noted, in the end, he turns the tables on the group and hoists them with their own poisoned wine petard.

The ending of the movie is a bit ambiguous, but apparently, Perlman then turns into the Hitler-like threat the group thought it was trying to prevent. The movie's message seemed to be that when the new Hitler arrives, he won't be some loud-mouthed, obnoxious bigot, but someone who will totally charm you. (And a conservative, at that.)

And then there's the characterization of the conservatives. If the playwright believes that conservatives drive trucks and routinely run around praising Hitler, then I guess he doesn't know many conservatives.

This young man, a patriotic Desert Storm vet, first startles the group when he insists on saying grace before the vegan meal and then goes on to praise Hitler, alarming and repulsing the other dinners...Reverend Gerald spewing hateful statements about gays in mellifluous tones before his spectacular, red-faced demise

Unspoken message is:I mean we don't condone it but you can sure see why people would be moved to violence against such monsters

TWM did not reveal anything of a surprise. The ending is typical, and designed to absolve the troupe from any guilt in espousing the death people they don't like. The students get their just desserts, so liberals can watch the play or movie and revel in the killing of conservatives and Christians...and then reaffirm their hatred when a bad guy makes the students pay for their sins.

However, on the heels of the more recent shooting deaths in Tucson, Ariz., the idea of murdering people with opposing political views on either side — and the audience’s gleeful laughter that followed these scenes — falls somewhere between slightly uncomfortable to blatantly offensive.

Yeah, yeah, I should have added a "spoiler" warning but then again I really didn't expect many of the folks here to actually watch the thing. I only managed to sit through it barely when I caught it on HBO a while back. If, after having me spoil it for you, want to watch it to see how it ends, check out this Youtube video . . .

I’ve seen the movie several times, consider it one of my favorite “political” movies, and have recommended the movie to my conservative/libertarian friends. I actually think releasing a play based on the movie is timely now for a couple of reasons:

First, in the movie, Ron Perlman’s character addresses the question of whether he feels any responsibility if someone listens to his show and commits an act of violence. He argues in a principled manner for the importance of allowing vigorous dissent even when the dissenters throw a few (rhetorical) elbows.

Second, the transformation of the protagonists (the five liberal graduate students who murder their dinner guests) seemed far more true to life than the conservative caricatures that they killed. Initially they rationalize their acts as preemptively “killing the next Hitler” but and as the story progresses you start to see how increasingly intolerant they become where a fourteen-year old girl who didn’t want to participate in a sex education class almost became one of their victims. At one point one of the guests was on the verge of “repenting” his views on the homeless but they talked him out of it so that they could rationalize poisoning him.

I do have to agree that the movie The Last Supper does in fact indict the liberals who kill the backwards conservatives. They ultimately come across as smug and petty and arrogant. The character who the audience ultimately identifies with is the arch conservative who they set up to kill because he actually argues from principles, whereas they are simply arrogant elitists.That being said they do poke fun at the conservatives with their backwards views as well, but it's the liberals that are the vicious murderers, smug in their beliefs that they killed "the next hitler" simpy because they were against welfare or something really miniscule.

Isn't the leftist fascination with murder of either political enemies or at least those not part of the accepted "circle" an established theme in movies and theatre and literature going back for many, many, many years? One needn't just look at this example (or even at anything within the past ten years). The classic example in film, it seems to me, is Rope, though of course the leftist intellectuals there were based on Leopold and Loeb who were anarchists not socialists, but in some respects not that far removed from the types described here. And we could go further back into literature with some of Dostoyevsky's works. Given time, I'm sure I could think of more examples.

I've seen the movie -- it was quite a few years ago but I remember it as smart and funny. I definitely saw it as an indictment of the smug liberals. They are worse than any of the people they hate, and they cannot see it.

How it comes off in a play is going to depend on how it's directed. You could probably swing it right or left depending on emphasis and tone.

I have not seen or read the play. So we can only guess how it ends. Some of the comments to the review give us much on which to guess.

My guess/impression is that the play is ironic. That the lefties get to act out their fantasies and attitudes upon "conservatives" that are rank caricatures of the real thing. These are not real "conservatives" who are dined then murdered. These are "conservatives" as the *left* view them.

Therefore the play might in fact be a mirror that challenges lefties to take a hard look at themselves and how they view people who hold different views. "Do you hear yourselves? see yourselves? Do you realize what this ghoulish scenario is basically what goes on in your head each day? Do you understand where this will lead?"

Which is why I am shocked - if my guess is right - that such a play can be staged in Madison Wisconsin. Would such a play about conservatives get a positive review? Heck - we might ask how such a play about lefties can get a positive review.

My guess/impression is that the play is ironic. That the lefties get to act out their fantasies and attitudes upon "conservatives" that are rank caricatures of the real thing. These are not real "conservatives" who are dined then murdered. These are "conservatives" as the *left* view them.

I have always wondered if the irony excuse is really often developed after the fact, when liberals using it are caught with their pants down.

Or, is it the left's answer to the cynicism seen on the right? (And, yes, I am one of the more cynical).

The problem is that if they really were all that ironic, they wouldn't be liberals, because that would require that they understood the hypocrisy and deception of their positions, which require Utopian wishful thinking to believe.

This weekend my husband was couch-potato'd all weekend and watched this awfully boring movie called "The Road" in which all the cannibals in this ruined dystopia were truck drivers, even down to the gimme caps.

I was kind of rooting for them to eat Viggo Mortensen and his whinyass kid. Then I went upstairs and played Farmville.

Awesome main picture for the review. Even the black guy looks white. Can't look intellectual wearing FUBU, can we?

Beyond that, the play sounds neat. The Left needs sadistic political porn, too. I always find movies/plays/music that are heavy in politics and "pop culture references" to be shallow and easily forgettable, so I doubt this play, of all plays, will leave a lasting impression on the cultural landscape. It's just fun, mindless escapism (but catering to progressives, it has to have pretenses of intellectualism, of course). As with Wall-E, I'm sure I could suspend my political bias and enjoy the dribble for what it is. Hopefully the play comes out on video or has a tour; I'd see it.

My guess/impression is that the play is ironic. That the lefties get to act out their fantasies and attitudes upon "conservatives" that are rank caricatures of the real thing. These are not real "conservatives" who are dined then murdered. These are "conservatives" as the *left* view them.

Sort of the left-wing political version of one of those pornographic films where, after an hour of hard-core sex, someone in a white coat comes out and reminds the viewers about the dangers of STDs.

The interesting part about the comments to the review was that no one was willing to seriously address Mr. Kaufman's proposal on how they would feel if the play were about conservatives murdering liberals for their ideology.

Evasion of the question is often more revealing than answering the question.

The play, as described here, is meta-smug. The writer and the liberal theatre goers congratulate themselves on their ability to see the dark undertones of their ideology. That is why they are different than conservatives who cannot see the real world damage their views impose. Total crap. These are the kind of people who think that if you deconstruct a patriotic truck driver, you will find a Hitler sympathizer. The liberal descent into murder is presented as a what-if fantasy while are the conservatives are, of course, the real world murderers.....The record to date: no artist has yet presented an accurate representation of the leftist as nihilist failure. We have had Babbitt, Stanley Kowalksi, Sammy Glick and a long line of fictional characters that illustrate different dimensions of the human character. But where in literature is there someone like Stalin. Stalin engineered a bank robbery that killed forty two innocent bystanders and was still sensitive enough to write poetry that was published in anthologies. I have never encountered a credible leftist monster in fiction or movies.

And if any of you are in Madison, go see the play and report back! It's only $15 ($13 with non-perishable food donation). And if you see it on the 28th or 29th, Dan Rosen (the writer) will be in attendance and will take questions at the end of the performances. So you can ask, "WTF, commie?"

Well if the Lefty was someone who thought Mao Tse Tung (Or Zhou or however they spell it now) was their favorite philosopher, that would equal it out with the kind right wing Hitler loving Desert Storm vet.

Right?

(Actually the Cohen Brothers version of this was pretty funny IIRC. This context, not so much.)

Since the Tucson shootings had nothing to do with the "vitriolic" political rheotirc, I don't think the opening of the play is connected to the shooting discussion.

Now, it might be appropriate to say that in light of all the recent *discussion* about vitriolic political it was an odd choice, but my guess is they have been in rehearsal for a while.

Just saw the video of the guy in Denver screaming "Kill Michelle Malkin" in a crowd a couple years back. Along with a lefty radio guy pursuing her screaming ugly things at her. So don't talk to me about right wing vitriol.

As for the "vet" who is murdered (haha!) in the play -- it's like those Law & Order shows where if there is a military character, they are always the bad guy or crazy. The sterotyping of our men and women in the military by the left disgusts me.

[T]hink a play about a bunch of conservatives getting together each week to kill a lefty (and then maybe having second thoughts) would get such a favorable review?

I haven't seen the film of "The Last Supper" since it came out, and I've never seen the play.

That being said, my recollection is that the group of lefties eventually moves beyond "killing right-wing extremists" to killing "innocent" people, too. Ultimately they are outsmarted and killed by, basically, Rush Limbaugh. So "The Last Supper" isn't exactly left-wing fantasy material.

The fact that many liberals seem fascinated with the idea of killing everyone who disagrees with them (like this play and that global warming video referred to) goes some way toward explaining their obsession with gun control. They are afraid what they might do with a weapon. They have to assume (all people are the same, right?) that conservatives must feel the same way so even more reason to keep guns out of the hands of everyone. They can't conceive that maybe the way they think really is different (and worse). But it can't be worse, because they're liberals. They're the better people.

Is the play the same as the movie? I thought folks above said the ending was changed for the film.

The film came first, the play was adapted from it by its screenwriter. The description given at the link Althouse posted is identical to the movie, and the comments confirm that the ending is the same as that of the movie.

You would, in any event, have to change a lot more than the ending for the message to be "the left needs to be ruthless like Stalin and Mao". You'd have to change the whole story from beginning to end.

The film is nothing but the worst kind of liberal circle jerk, including the last act and the ending. It doesn't have the stones to truly question any of the left's presumptions or take the audience out of its comfort zone.

For example, while the "Rush Limbaugh" character is, indeed, well-spoken and clever, he tells the liberals that he doesn't really believe the things he broadcasts and thinks his audience is a bunch of simple-minded morons.

This has always been the liberal fantasy about Limbaugh. God forbid the character actually have core conservative principles.

Also, by having the liberals all die at the end by his hand, they even get to become martyrs.

Really, they should have just filmed the actors masturbating. It would have been cheaper and more honest.

Revenant:"Because I've seen the movie, and it isn't a plausible interpretation of it.

Rent it. It is a decent black comedy"

I disagree. It is plausible. This film wants to have its cake and eat it, too. It's a mess. The ending does, indeed, suggest that they probably should have killed Limbaugh and that great evil is done by their failure.

They just don't have the guts to say it outright. Plus, becoming martyrs is more fun.

It's an enjoyable enough film if you can look past the political specifics, but intellectually and morally it's pretty obnoxious and incoherent.

Conspiracy Theory:The White House with it's tremendous intelligence assets found out that there really are a lot of leftys planning on assassinating Republicans (as the Governor of Missouri found out last September). As a pre-emptive strike on the damage such deeds would cause the Democrat Party they sent out a memo to make sure that any time anything that could be remotely blamed on Republicans occurs, all operatives start the dis-information making conservatives appear responsible, thus we get left wing press Tucson fiasco. (Link to Blog post about memo). When Sarah Palin (or any Republican) gets assassinated, the Democrats will tut-tut at cocktail parties ,well they had it coming. The press reaction will reflect this.

"The sterotyping of our men and women in the military by the left disgusts me."

That reminds me- whatever happened to the Arizona state rep [Linda Lopez?] who blamed the Tuscon shooting on an vet who served in Afghanistan. The networks reported this early comment of hers but never tracked her down to see whyshe claimed it.

A closing shot of a painting portrays all five students collapsed on the floor, with Norman standing next to the blue bottle and smoking his cigar. The film ends with audio of Norman speculating about his possible presidential bid to a cheering crowd, pledging to do the people's will, for as always, he is the American people's "humble, humble, servant."

While not definitive, that sounds a lot like the one guy they didn't kill turned out to be exactly what they feared all along: the next Hitler.

For a great literary representation of "the leftist as nihilist failure," "someone like Stalin [who] engineered a bank robbery that killed forty two innocent bystanders and was still sensitive enough to write poetry that was published in anthologies," "a credible leftist monster," I highly recommend Dostoevsky's Demons (otherwise translated The Possessed or The Devils). An amazing novel, a masterpiece, a profound dissection of the horrors of left-wing radicalism, published in 1872... uncannily prophetic.

The film (and, apparently, the play) goes into a lot of effort setting up the Limbaugh character as dangerous and nasty.

When he actually shows up, though, he turns out to not only be reasonable, but to have much better defenses for his beliefs than the ostensibly "intellectually elite" grad students do. By this point in the film the grad students have moved beyond murdering dangerous/violent political enemies, to killing people whose politics are merely stupid (the librarian who wants to ban Catcher in the Rye), and finally to killing people who have done absolutely nothing "wrong" at all, even by the warped standards of the killers (i.e., the sheriff).

In short, by that point in the film the protagonists are established as the ones who are guilty of horrible crimes perpetrated under an intellectually indefensible ideology -- i.e., exactly what they initially accused the right of. At that point they are killed, in the exact same manner that they had been killing others. Thematically, they are executed for being guilty under their own rules. They are intellectually and morally bankrupt, unrepentant, and a clear danger to society.

The bit at the end where the Limbaugh character contemplates a Presidential run can't plausibly be interpreted as "they should have killed him", because the movie has just finished establishing that he's not all that bad. A more sensible interpretation is that the one person in the movie willing and able to defend his ideas on their own merits is the one who wins.

Some defend the play on the grounds that its depiction of the murderers and their victims is not cartoonish but sophisticated.

This is, of course, a bullshit defense offered by dishonest partisans.

Nor is such a defense new.

Remember the leftist literary icon Paul de Man? During WWII he wrote for the Nazi collaborationist newspaper Le Soir.

In one notorious article, "The Jews in Contemporary Literature", he argued against "vulgar anti-Semitism", saying it should be replaced with a sophisticated anti-Semitism. This "sophistication" argued that Jews had contributed nothing positive to European culture and that they should be expelled from Europe.

When de Man's wartime writings were revealed, many postmodernists tried to defend him by arguing that his opposition to vulgar antisemitism somehow absolved him.

No matter how "sophisticated" and "nuanced" those Madison liberals think they are, they are nonetheless the intellectual and moral heirs of Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mao.

I thought the movie was just a brief history of modern times, assuming the history of the modern world since 1789 or 1793 is leftists going on a killing spree that paves the way for more efficient killers (with a messiah complex) to take control by manipulating the enemies/victims of the revolutionaries, or hijacking the revolution itself.

I don't remember if the moral is about the fruit of the poisonous tree, or that no good deed goes unpunished.

Fine. What were the right-wing parties in Weimar Germany, then? Or did Weimar Germany uniquely lack a right wing, condemning it to roll over and over as it attempted to fly?

The Nazis were neither Marxist nor Socialist. At the beginning of their regime they built a literal military-industrial complex, uniting tycoons and generals.

Consider that Nazis nationalized no businesses. Consider that the Nazis had no central planning authority. Consider that with rare exceptions, the Nazis set up no state run enterprises. (At most they would build a state factory and hire a private firm to operate it.) Nazis appreciated the efficiencies and innovations that competition and entrepreneurship provided.

Instead of honoring the dead, they wanted to hijack the site to promote their particular political vision. They pretended like it was a noble idea that stood on its own but as soon as (within an hour) they were denied space at the Trade Center site they gave up and ended the project. In other words, when they were denied their propaganda podium they didn't see the point in continuing.

"But the head of the IFC project said in a statement that he did not think there was a viable alternative place for the museum at the World Trade Center site.

'We consider our work, therefore, to have been brought to an end,' said IFC president Richard Tofel."

The Nazis were to the left of the Social Democrats on economic and domestic policy (their ranks included millions of trade unionists and ex-Communists) and to the right of the German National People's Party on militarism and Jew-hatred.

Or did Weimar Germany uniquely lack a right wing, condemning it to roll over and over as it attempted to fly?

If you mean "left" and "right" in terms of relative placement on that country's political spectrum then obviously all countries have a left and a right wing.

But if that's what you meant then it is obviously pretty stupid to expect American right-wingers to support right-wingers in other countries; plenty of countries have "wings" that, in American terms, are "left" and "even further left".

The Nazis were neither Marxist nor Socialist.

Of course they were socialist. They were just nationalist and socialist rather than internationalist and socialist.

At the beginning of their regime they built a literal military-industrial complex, uniting tycoons and generals.

Barack Obama and FDR did the same thing. You can quibble whether direct government management of industry qualifies as "socialism", but it sure as heck isn't right-wing! :)

The recent trend in the comments here of associating some obscure decades-dead figure with pure evil, and then identifying him as a liberal icon annoys me. (You know Wlater Mitty, the left wing icon? Well he originated the dead baby jokes.)

The bit at the end where the Limbaugh character contemplates a Presidential run can't plausibly be interpreted as "they should have killed him", because the movie has just finished establishing that he's not all that bad. A more sensible interpretation is that the one person in the movie willing and able to defend his ideas on their own merits is the one who wins.

I think an equally valid alternative interpretation of the ending might be that all conservatives are evil, murderous Nazi-like enemies of The People, especially the ones who seem reasonable. The Limbaugh clone is a less-introspective, less-regretful murderer than the students were, and since the audience sees him positioning himself to become the next Hitler, then -- gosh! -- it turns out that the students were right, after all.

Remember, the students were trying to make the world a better place! Their intentions were good, which in the eyes of some leftists is more than enough justification for anything.

And that's an excuse that the Limbaugh character isn't allowed by the script. If this "reasonable" conservative were honest and moral and pure and upstanding, wouldn't he have just walked out of the house and called the cops?

And that's an excuse that the Limbaugh character isn't allowed by the script. If this "reasonable" conservative were honest and moral and pure and upstanding, wouldn't he have just walked out of the house and called the cops?

If failing to call the cops disqualifies a person from being considered honest, moral, pure and upstanding, then the students are disqualified about fifteen minutes into the movie. There isn't a flaw assigned to the Limbaugh surrogate that his would-be killers don't possess in spades.

This is shaping up to be the worst case of conservative artistic confusion since the 1984 Reagan campaign mistook "Born in the USA" for a patriotic anthem. You assume that the students seem heroic to lefties not because you saw the movie and thought they were heroes, but because you assume that lefties will see other lefties murdering right wingers and cheer them on. Meanwhile, back in reality, the students are presented as a bunch of self-involved jackasses motivated not by a desire to make the world a better place, but by their unjustified belief in their own moral superiority. The message of the movie is simply that they don't measure up to their own rules. By their own standards they deserve to be killed -- and that's just what happens.

Honestly, now. It isn't like "they became that which they most feared" is some wacky new concept screenwriters came up with in the 90s.

Will be keenly anticipated by all who thrilled to their last production, "Lying in Wait For Godot".

From the makers of "The Neocon of Venice Had it Coming", "The Crucible (Is Not a Good Way to Dispose of the Remains of Our Victims Because it Releases Carbon Dioxide)", and, of course, "Death of a Salesman".

You assume that the students seem heroic to lefties not because you saw the movie and thought they were heroes, but because you assume that lefties will see other lefties murdering right wingers and cheer them on.

Then why the cheers from the audience?

Meanwhile, back in reality, the students are presented as a bunch of self-involved jackasses motivated not by a desire to make the world a better place, but by their unjustified belief in their own moral superiority. The message of the movie is simply that they don't measure up to their own rules. By their own standards they deserve to be killed -- and that's just what happens.

Rev, the 1. (R) German National People's Party was simpatico enough with the Nazis to form a coalition with them.

That doesn't say much. After all, just a few years later the Soviet Union was simpatico enough with Nazi Germany to form a coalition with them.

Anyway, like I pointed out above there were areas in which the Nazis were right-wing, and those areas overlapped well with the DNVP. It isn't like the DNVP was getting any offers to form a coalition with the Communists and Social Democrats. :)

My daughter's art school just had their first theater production. They did a play by the head of the theater department (the school has four art concentrations, dance, theater, visual art, and music) that he'd written himself (solves copyright issues) and the plot was thus:

It's soon after 9-11.Kids buy a friend a pretty scarf.They go out.The girl with the new scarf gets separated from her friends.It get's cold.She puts the scarf on.Girl is beaten to death by some thugs who think she is Muslim.

FLS, Was there any difference in living in Nazi Germany and the USSR? Not really. Top down control of industry, no unions, corrupt government officials, no free speech, gun control, death camps, lack of religious freedom and oppression.What was difference except singing the International vs Das Fatherland. Sieg Heil vs Comrade/

When I go to a play, or a gallery, or a concert, I consider it an opportunity for self-reflection. What is my initial feeling about the artwork? How does the artist provoke that feeling? What preconceptions or aspects of my own experience magnify the feeling?

None of the commenters has seen the play, yet the discussion has whipped into a frenzy of whether Nazis were "right" or "left", and whether the Limbaugh-clone character was Hitler or the grad-students were the equivalent of "good Germans".